Best Friends
by XxBootsxX
Summary: Red Arrow checks in at the mountain after months of absense taking on missions for the league, and drills the newly-named Nightwing for answers. No longer just a one-shot. Roy/Kaldur if you squint, will become clearer in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

"Well?" The voice is gruff, expectant, to the point. Not that anyone'd expect anything less from Roy. "Where is he?" The archer had just strolled right into Mount Justice, quiver knocking against his back as the speaker buzzed out 'Recognized; Red Arrow, B-06.'

He stood there now, arms crossed over his broad chest, minute frown showing on his lips. The figure he'd been speaking to, dressed in all tight black with a blue emblem over his chest, faltered in his own cheerful expression. "Hey, R.A. Nice to see you too. How long has it been? Oh, thanks for your concern, but I'm doing fin-" "Where _is_ he?" Repeats the clone, cutting off his friend's sarcastic banter. "You said he was on business with Aquaman; _last month_. I haven't been able to contact him since-" "Really complicated, something about eradicating mutant jellyfish, even took Aquagirl to help-" "Bull, Nightwing, Aquaman could have handled it himself-" "Actually, from what I heard, cobra venom was involved-" "Stop lying!" Snaps Roy, eyes narrowed, eyebrows drawn together which crinkles his mask. His fists clench so tightly that the knuckles turn white. "There's something you're not telling me. You know where Kal is, and you know what he's doing." Accuses the archer, stabbing a finger at the younger hero's chest.

Amazingly, the other male's face remains impassive. Having dealt with the red-haired archer's fiery temper before, he's not that phased by it now. The only gesture to symbolise he's uncomfortable is a quick brush of fingers against his neck, before Dick shakes his head. "…I don't think you wanna know, Roy, it was a complete _dis_aster." The raven-haired male can actually see the clone's jaw set, his teeth clench and unclench. "…Go on." Comes the response at last from Red, and, reluctantly, Nightwing nods and folds his hands behind his back. "Can't tell you the whole thing-" "I'm a part of the League!" "Yeah, but not a part of the team. 'Way,{Not _any_way, there's only one way to say this} it wasn't a mutant jellyfish mission. It was dangerous, but they all knew what they were getting into, facing up against Black Manta." The dark-haired male's expression darkens at the name, and Red Arrow takes not, narrowing his eyes once more. "Aquagirl- You know, Tula? She died in rockslide when one of Manta's beams destabilised the structure she was taking cover under, and-" "_What?_" "Kal didn't take it well. Brooding for weeks, taken off active duty because he was too angry-" "Why didn't he-" "Tell you? Think he tried, but you weren't there."

Grayson pauses for a moment, looking over the Archer and seeing how he's taking it. The whites of his mask stretched, no doubt due to his widened eyes, Roy had shock and concern written all over his face, as well as little bit of frustration. Nightwing could see his fists were clenched to whiteness again and closed his own eyes. "That's not all." Dick's voice is quieter, tone softer, as if talking to a scared child. He didn't want to be the one to break the news. "Kaldur's father, is Black Manta! Kept from him by Aquaman until Kal went to go avenge Tula-" "No!" But the former Robin keeps going, ignoring the fact that Roy's shoulders are shaking. "Aqualad basically deserted the team and joined his dad, nobody's really sure how it happened, but he… Was under an insane amount of stress n'grief, Roy. But from his point of view, it's easy to understand, we were all changing so much-"

"I get it, okay? Shut up already." The voice is so deadly calm Dick has to look up to make sure it's Red, and not some sort of shapeshifting supervillian. "You alienated him." A tinge of anger and accusation shows in the blank tone. "None of you even_ tried_ caring for him, I bet. Just like none of you cared when he was in that cage of fire, and when he tried to keep you all together in Northern India-" But Nightwing cuts in again, exasperated. "You weren't there, you don't know what happened." The redhead's eyes are narrowed now, glaring at his friend, but the raven-haired male doesn't back down, meeting his gaze head on.

The two former sidekicks stand there for several moments, saying nothing, staring eachother down, waiting for the other to give in, when Roy finally speaks, raising his head even higher. "I almost forgot why I _really_ refused to join the team." He mutters, hiding a smirk of triumph as he sees Nightwing's eyebrows crinkle. "It's because it's turned so pathetic-" "Shove it, RA. You're upset over Aqualad, I know. But that doesn't give you authorization to take it out on me or the rest of the team." Dick's words are smooth, calculated, and leave Roy looking slightly taken aback. "Big talk, for the bird boy who never cared-" "Never cared? RA, _listen to yourself_!" The archer glowers at the big bat's protégé, but said protégé doesn't seem to notice. "We all cared, he was our leader-" "He's _my_ best friend!" Roars the clone in protest, fed up of Nightwing's talk.

"I-"

"Shut up!"

"Roy-"

"Just shut up!"

"_Roy!"_

"_**Enough."**_

"The two of you have been making enough noise to draw half of Gotham's villains to your location by now." The redhead recognizes the voice instantly, much before he sees the caped crusader's face melt out of the background. But this only presents him with another opportunity. "Why didn't you send a league search party out Aqualad? Why didn't _Aquaman_ search?" Roy fires off questions to the head of the League, and even Nightwing takes a step back. "Aqualad was _not_ league responsibility. A search party was sent out regardless, but failed to yield results. Aquaman was found unsuitable for the search, as were you, and were kept out of it for your own good."

Roy was close to bursting, but couldn't. Not in front of Batman, which he'd never get away with. So instead Red just sends a scathing glare to everyone in side, and turns to leave. That's when he hears Batman speak again. "Aqualad converted three months ago. You're too late to stop him, and I highly advise you not to try. Return to Star City, and** forget about him**."

The last three words are spoken with a heavy emphasis, and the clone merely pauses, turns his head to the side, tilts his head down a few centimetres in a form of a nod, and resumes walking. When the Zeta tubes take him back to Star City however, simply forgetting about the brave team leader who had been through so much just to keep his team together, suffering so much before finally succumbing to his own overpowering grief… Seems impossible.

So, uh, first fic upload in two years. Tell me what you think, and if I should continue or not?


	2. Lost Cause

He knows he should just give up now. He knows that Kaldur's gone, too gone to help, to salvage. The look in his former friend's eyes when Roy had used up all of his arrows just to take off his headgear was… Unthinkable. Roy had never seen that kind of rage show on the Atlantean's face before, and it if he had not already been starting to get crease lines in his forehead and frown marks around his mouth, Red Arrow would even say it didn't fit him.

But he couldn't think of the lost cause now, not when he had the real Roy, the real Speedy to find.

It proves to be a great distraction.

* * *

He still hasn't given up. Not on the cause that was lost so long ago, not on finding the archer captured even longer ago. But he's given up on Jade. Jade, who he thought understood him, understood why he couldn't just give up on his search. Apparently, he was wrong. The redhead finds that he's been wrong a lot, lately.

Wrong that Kaldur would be at the heist last week. {He wasn't. Just some of his henchmen.}

Very wrong in assuming that the Atlantean would forgive him for not being there to help when Tula died. {He was unconscious for six hours after that encounter.}

Very, very wrong thinking that Kaldur would talk to him in a civilized manner at all. {It seems that attempting to kill Roy was the second Manta's only way of communication.}

And so extremely wrong in thinking that he could pursue both Speedy and Aqualad simultaneously.

No, in the end, Roy had to forget about Kaldur once more in order to obtain the less hopeless goal.

But he still had not given up.

* * *

Roy's destroying his body. This, he knows. He goes without meals, wastes his muscles away all day with activities that are simply too much for them, and defends Star City all night with only an hour or two of rest if he feels like rewarding himself.

He usually doesn't. What was he supposed to reward himself for? Being a clone of a boy who never got to live his dream? Failing his best friend when he needed Roy most? Being unable to stop his wife from leaving him, even though he thought she understood?

Nobody did, this was something Roy had learned the hard way. Nobody understood why he did this, why the archer refused to stop searching for the real Harper, why he would show up at the Manta's hideout every once in a while, and try to talk some sense into the young corrupt leader. Not that he was all that surprised anymore- once he finally did find the real Speedy, once he finally did convince Aqualad to come back, then they'd all see how wrong they were. Green Arrow, Black Canary, Miss Martian, Nightwing, even Kid Fla-Wally and Arte-…Yeah, Artemis- They'd all see.

Maybe he'd even be able to smooth things over with Jade.

* * *

**Well, the last chapter was mostly dialogue, and this has none at all.**

**There will be another chapter to this, I've already got a few ideas, and it will be more Roy/Kaldur apparent.**

**Also, thanks to the three who reviewed my last chapter, I will try to keep the one-speaker-per-paragraph rule in mind for my next chapter.**

**Oh, and if you'd like to add a review that'd be awesome because I'd love to know what you think, maybe give me some idea on what you'd like to see next and I'm now off to watch the episode of YJ that first aired yesterday!**


End file.
